


I'm Not who you Want Me to Be

by angrydoritoobsession (amieandjas)



Category: Glitch Techs (Cartoon)
Genre: I've added ocs bc we dont know enough about Mitch's past, Maybe a beginning, Ngl inspired by Rose Tinted kudos solid fic, this is rambly, uhhh y'all seemed to like it?, uhhhh mitch has feelings, wow im writing more
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26533747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amieandjas/pseuds/angrydoritoobsession
Summary: Mitch is stuck at home and has to deal with the consequences of his actions.
Comments: 23
Kudos: 42





	1. The Shpiel

It’s his first day off in a while. Phil sort of forced him to take some because he was “injured” by making “reckless decisions” and not “relying on his team.” Sure he had a broken wrist, but Phil was being overdramatic when he banned him from missions until it heals, and from coming into work at all for four days. What is he supposed to do with all this time?

Apparently, talk to himself in the bathroom mirror.

He’s sitting on the counter sullenly, glaring at the cast that is currently where his gauntlet should be. “It’s not my fault, it’s all because of that.. blueberry.” Calling Five a blueberry seems pointless when he’s not around to hear it, but he’s just such a… “Noob.”

Mitch slides off the counter, heading into the small kitchen area of his apartment. He likes to say he moved there because it’s closer to the Hinobi store and quieter so he can focus, but there are certainly other perks. The low rent price and the fact that the upstairs neighbour seems to like to leave hot meals on his porch after a long day at work are definitely part of that.

There are also negatives to the living situation, however. As demonstrated by the obnoxious knocking on the door for the fifth time since his neighbour/landlord got home. “Mitch, come on. I know you’re upset, but please, we need to talk.”

“I’m off the clock, Phil! You can’t do a performance review without paying me for it!” Mitch sighs, leaning against the front door. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay? I need to think.”

“That sounds dangerous.” Phil huffs at him through the door, “Look, I brought cookies.”

Mitch opens the door a crack, the chain lock keeping Phil from pushing his way in. “Oh, why didn’t you say so? I’m still not in the mood to CHAT!” 

Another sigh, this time from his boss. “Mitch, you need to work on your teamwork skills or corporate will never promote you. I know you want to be ‘the best’ or whatever-”

“If I’m listening to the shpiel I get the cookies.”

“Let me in and you can have the cookies, the ‘shpiel,’ and I’ll throw in some criticism of your teammates’ performances yesterday as well.” Phil raises an eyebrow, holding up the plate of cookies.

Mitch debates with himself for a moment, before muttering something about bribery and abuse of power as he shuts the door to undo the chain lock, letting Phil in semi reluctantly, and grabbing a cookie as the man walks into the apartment past him. They settle into the only two seats in the place, Phil on the armchair by the tv Mitch rarely uses, and Mitch in his gaming chair that he pulled out of his bedroom.

“Okay, continue shpiel.” The teen goes to flip his visor down out of habit, remembering halfway through the motion that Phil confiscated it so he can’t “sneak around looking for glitches” during his time off.

To his credit, the man looks guilty when Mitch shoots him a glare. “Like I was saying, I know you are the best Glitch Tech in the district, and I know you want to lead bigger teams on important missions. However, I cannot authorize you as a leader on large scale operations while you continuously steal XP and undermine your teammates’ concerns. You need to listen to your team and rely on them to take on tasks you cannot, or should not, be doing.”

Grumbling, Mitch pulls his feet up onto the gaming chair, grabbing another cookie. “I’ve heard this one before, Phil.”

“And yet you continue to berate your teammates and leave them out of things, to the detriment of the entire branch.” Phil sighs, “When your wrist heals, I’m assigning you a partner.”

“WHAT?” The yell echoes through the town, birds fly into the air, somewhere a cat yowls back at the sound reverberating through a trash can.

Phil removes his fingers from his ears as Mitch begins to rant at him, shifting his features into a well-practiced unamused expression to wait until the Tech is done yelling. Which takes a bit. Almost three minutes in, he glances at his watch and sighs. “Mitch.”

“...and on top of that, I haven’t had an ‘assigned’ partner for two years! Once you pass level 20 you aren’t required to HAVE a partner for missions. That’s in the handbook! I’m a lone wolf, a solo fighter, I am my own team-” He’s interrupted by Phil’s hand waving in front of his face. “What did I do to deserve this?”

“You almost got Nix killed, for one.”

“What?” Mitch’s angry expression flickers as he turns to fully face Phil again, having been pacing for most of his rant. “Wh.. Is he okay?”

“Yeah, since Five noticed he was unconscious right away and called for the medical team, while you were off yelling at Miko for ‘getting in your way’ and blaming Zahra for the hit that broke your wrist.”

Mitch flops back down into the gaming chair, staring at his cast, anger dissipating. “Boosh.”

“That mission went bad in almost every way, and it’s a bad mark on your leadership skills, Mitch.” Phil sighs, leaning back in the armchair. “Corporate wanted me to demote you down to a level 10 gauntlet.”

No reaction from Mitch other than a small flinch.

“Don’t worry, they decided my choice of having an assigned partner would do. I’m not taking your levels, you earned those in one way or another.” Phil grabs one of the last cookies before continuing, “Look, either way, I’m assigning you a partner. Even if corporate hadn’t wanted you demoted, even if Nix hadn’t been badly injured. Your teamwork skills have been slipping since you and Zahra stopped working together. Besides, I think this will be mutually beneficial. You’ll relearn how to be a team player, and Five will be able to learn more about how Glitch Techs works from you.”

“Five? Seriously?” Mitch glares up at him, “Phil, you can’t be serious.”

“Hey, count your blessings. I’m sticking Zahra with Miko.”

“Consider my blessings counted, and then compared to my new mountain of misfortunes.”

“Mitch, stop being so dramatic.” Phil stands up, ready to leave. “You should check in on Nix, he’s conscious, but still in the medical wing. He doesn’t blame you, which makes him maybe the only one based on the testimonials.”

Mitch sighs, “When will he be home?”

“Gordon says probably in four days, minimum. He had a pretty serious blow to the head from that explosion, and they’re reluctant to let him go before the weekend.” Phil heads to the door, “If you don’t want to cook tonight-”

“I have leftover lasagna from last time, I’ll be fine.” Mitch gets up slowly, hesitating before saying, “I’ll go in tomorrow to see him.”

“Glad to hear it. And at least microwave the lasagna, okay? It’s practically a crime how much cold food you eat.” With that, Phil ducks out, closing the door behind him.

Mitch locks it thoroughly, ignoring the fact that Phil hadn't made good on his promise to criticize the other members of the team. He pushes his chair back into the bedroom before flopping dramatically onto his bed and running his non-broken hand through his somewhat bedraggled hair. He hadn’t bothered to shower this morning, being too frustrated to deal with putting the cast into a bag.

Nix was one of his first friends back when he was a new recruit. Sure he was partnered with Zahra, but they didn’t really get along at first. How had he not noticed Nix get hit during the explosion? Has he truly slipped that much? Mitch rolls over, wincing as he puts weight on his bad arm, and hiding his face in his pillow. But Five? He’d ignored Mitch’s orders and ran past him towards the explosion. He must have known Nix was on the other side and been trying to get him out of danger.

Mitch hates to admit it, but Five is actually a fairly good leader, for a newbie. He puts the team before himself and gets results. Mitch has no doubts that Five will be a good teammate if not being annoying about rules and also hating Mitch for not being who he expected.

Five’s… idolization of Mitch had been flattering, at first. Until he’d watched it crumble into nothing, replaced by disgust when the new Tech made eye contact with him as opposed to the admiration he’d seen originally.

But Mitch isn’t a gameplay tips tweeker anymore. He’s the top Glitch Tech. He can’t be “helpful” he can’t be “friendly.” He has to win if he wants to get ahead.

Or… wants to get his friends hurt, apparently.

He’s not sure when he’d stopped thinking of the other Techs as his friends, but he knows this is the first time he’s considered Nix a friend in a while. Stooges, lower lifeforms… he cringes internally, reflecting on how he’s treated them. No wonder they all groan when he walks into a room. He’s become a monster.

And now he can’t even play games because his cast gets in the way. Well, moping isn’t helping anything. He may as well try to play at least some PC games to take his mind off the lecture Phil gave him.

He glares at the cast on his hand. Stupid Miko and her stupid trigger happy face. Granted… he hadn’t told anyone that the Glitch would explode violently when attacked if it wasn’t disarmed first, and he had no reason to expect they would know that. Miko had mentioned that morning that her and Five were stuck on the level before the boss in The Bomb-uda Triangle, so neither of them would have encountered it before, and the others showed up as backup when Mitch had finally reluctantly called for them, they wouldn’t have known he hadn’t mentioned it.

So blaming him for it is probably… actually fair.

He hates it when he’s wrong. Always has. Being wrong means showing weakness. And he’s Mitch Williams, he can’t be weak.

The only people who have seen him cry are his siblings, and that was years ago. Phil is the only one outside his family he’s let down his guard around, and even then, that’s more of a partial thing. Phil’s seen him when he wasn’t at his best. Nobody, not even Audrey, has seen Mitch Williams at his worst.

Well, except maybe that copycat Glitch that had looked into his memories. He doesn’t know what his clone told the others, he doesn’t know what it said about him, and he doesn’t want to. Like, really does not want to know.

His hair is an absolute mess. He glares at the mirror next to his bed as if daring his reflection to say something. He runs his hand through it again, sighing and moving over to his computer. He hasn’t played anything but silly phone games all day, and it’s practically 7 pm. Boredom doesn’t even begin to describe his mood. There are a couple of online games he plays on PC, both of them with a different username to keep anyone from recognizing him. It’s not that he’s ashamed, but MMORPGs are not something MitchFTW would play openly, much less enjoy openly.

So, FearsomeToWatch it is. Considering he came up with it when he was 14 and decided he wanted an anonymous Gamertag, it’s held up pretty well. Nobody’s recognized him yet.

He’ll play for a few hours and then go to bed so that he doesn’t end up looking like a mess when he goes to check on Nix tomorrow. He’s dreading going into the medical wing enough as it is, he doesn’t need to look like complete garbage when he does. Of course, he gets sucked into the game, completely missing the alarm he set for midnight and playing well into the early hour of 4 am. When he finally notices the clock he groans, flopping his head onto his desk. “Aw, boosh.” Today should be fun.


	2. Apologies Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mitch did not mean to be sitting in the kitchen of a food truck, trying to figure out how to apologize to Five on the spot, but here he is. And that's just the first of several apologies he has to go through today.

He drags himself out of bed at 7 am, wanting to at least look decent when he goes to visit Nix. The shower is a complicated process, the bag around his cast only being semi-effective, so he has to shower with his right arm stuck out into the bathroom. It's not comfortable, but he manages to get his hair clean, and that's the most important part.  
A couple of hours later, and he grabs his wallet, keys, his phone, and the earbuds he hasn't used since he got his visor. He plans to stop and grab Nix a retro game plush for his semi-secret collection as an apology.

Of course, he has to walk, which he grumbles about as he struggles to untangle the earbuds so he can at least have music as he goes. He's so focused on the cord he doesn't notice Five sweeping the sidewalk until he crashes into him. “Agh!” As he falls he instinctively goes to catch himself with his right hand, realizing too late-

Five catches him before he manages to hurt his wrist even more. “Mitch?”

Basically being picked up off the ground by someone he's sure hates him is… an experience. Mitch sighs, “Thanks, blueberry.” He rights himself, brushing off his clothes and looking around for the earbuds he accidentally threw as he fell.

Five notices them first, lying in a puddle of questionably brown water. “Uhh…” he grimaces, “Were you looking for these?” He holds up the soggy tangle.

“Oh come on….” Mitch hesitantly takes the mess from him, holding them out with a disgusted look on his face. “Great.”

“Wanna borrow mine? I don't use them that much anymore. You can throw those in our garbage too if you want.”

“You don't have to lend me anything.” Mitch sighs, “I was going shopping anyway, I'll just pick up some new ones.” He frowns, “Wait, shouldn't you be at work?”

“My Abuelo hurt his back. I called out so I could help here. Speaking of which, I have to get back to the truck.” Five pauses, “I can throw those away for you?”

“Uh… yeah. I mean, of course.” Mitch hands back the messy earbuds. As Five turns to go, he sighs. “Wait.”

“I don't really have a lot of time, but feel free to come say whatever it is you want to while I work.” Five’s already vanished into the alleyway. Mitch hesitantly follows him, unsure of what he means until he sees the truck. Five’s climbing into the back, and he waves Mitch over to continue the conversation. “Abuela, this is Mitch. From work.

“Oh, Mitch?” An older lady grins and ruffles Five’s hair teasingly. “It's good to meet you, Hijo.”

Five's cheeks are decidedly pink as he slips an apron on and starts working on orders. His... grandmother, Mitch decides, laughs and heads back to talk to customers before he can respond with “what does Hijo mean” or “it's nice to meet you too.” He’s still standing outside the open door to the truck, trying to figure out what to say to Five.

“May as well come in. There's a folding chair beside the fridge, feel free to use it.” Five shakes his head, calling something in Spanish to his grandmother and passing her a tray of tacos.  
Mitch climbs up into the truck, spotting the chair in question. It's got a spare apron tossed over it, but he can tell it's fairly greasy. He only hesitates for a moment before sitting down tentatively and going back to working out his speech in his head. “I… So Phil’s probably going to make me formally apologize when I get back to work.”

“Good.”

He winces at the sharp tone coming from his coworker. The fact that he's holding a large menacing knife not really helping. “Thank you.”

Five almost drops the knife, spinning around to face him, “What?”

“Phil told me you saved Nix’s life.” Mitch sighs, running a hand through his hair and not meeting Five’s startled gaze. “Thank you. I don't know what…” he sighs again, “and I'm sorry. For not listening to you, or having a plan that wasn't ‘everybody stay out of my way.’” Mitch glances up at Five, “Everyone getting hurt was on me, and I'm sorry for failing you.”

“I've never seen you actually apologize before.”

“I try not to… emote… a lot.” Shaking his head, Mitch stands up to go. “But I messed up, and I know that now. I may take pride in being a jerk, but when people get hurt because of it, I know I've gone way too far.” He hesitates at the door, “Also, did Phil tell you he’s assigning me a partner for missions when I'm allowed back?”

“Why would he tell me that..?” Five looks confused for about two seconds before the realization hits him, “Oh.. oh no.”

“Pfft.” Mitch chuckles, “I’d say I'm offended but that's probably a fair reaction. I just wanted to give you some warning so you have time to prepare and don't mess up my scores.”

“I mean, this seems like more of a punishment for me than for you.”

“I don't plan on letting you get hurt.” Mitch frowns, “I know my record on that front isn't great, but it's not like you're incapable of protecting yourself.” With that, he slips out of the truck, leaving a very confused Five behind to do his job. As he continues on his way to the store, he makes a mental note of where the truck is located. That food smelled really good, and he might just bring his siblings here while he's got time off.

Without music while he walks, he has to face his thoughts. It’s been a while since Mitch has openly felt bad about something. He usually denies and blames away his mistakes, but this one… rather, this series of mistakes, got nearly everyone on his team injured. He glares at the ground as he walks, fists clenched in frustration. He honestly can't believe he apologized to Five, much less thanked him. He's going to have to be really careful when he gets back to work. If Five thinks he has a weakness he could exploit it. Mitch is not going to let that happen again. He's never going to fall into that trap, not after last time-

“Mitch?” Miko crashes to the ground in front of him, her gauntlet beeping loudly. “What are you doi- LOOK OUT!!” A glitch is bearing down on them, and Mitch jumps out of the way just in time to avoid getting crushed.

  
“Seriously? You're stuck on a Frutlop?” He grits his teeth as the stupid app character tries to hit her with a bat. “It's not even a real game!”

Miko sighs, “I don't have time for this, Mitch. You don't have anything that can help me, so why don't you buzz off?”

“Aim for its tail.” He huffs, ducking from the barrage of bananas the Frutlop fires at them. “Without it, it can't balance, and it'll fall over when it tries to move.”

Miko hesitates, “Why should I trust you?”

“Because as much as I find you obnoxious, overwhelming, and extremely annoying, I don't want you to get hurt. Especially not by a level 4 Glitch, that's just embarrassing.” He ducks behind her shield as a wave of pears comes next. 

“You sure had a funny way of showing you didn't want us to get hurt last time.” She follows his advice anyways, taking out the tail as it fires several bunches of grapes at them.

Mitch flinches, falling silent for a moment before shaking his head and going to leave. “Nix was my friend. I'm not rejoicing right now.”

“Was??” Miko spins around as her gauntlet chimes to indicate the glitch has been captured. “He died?”

“No. I hope not!” Mitch sighs, “I mean he was my friend years ago before I started going on solo missions. Zahra and I were partners, but Nix and I were like you and Five.”

“Oh. That scared me.” She frowns, “What happened?”

Mitch’s eyes widen, and he backs up a few steps. “I… it's none of your business.” Shaking his head, he resumes his frustrated expression, “You're welcome for the tip. Boosh.” With that, he stalks off. Miko, the nosy teen that she is, follows him. He's not stupid, and she's the opposite of stealthy. Spinning around, he glares at the mailbox she ducked behind. “Don't you have a job to do?”

“Fine.” She whines, turning to head back to unpause the people she froze earlier. “Zahra’s staking out the hospital wing, you may want to bring a better apology for her.”

He waits until she's gone before heading into the gaming memorabilia shop. He hasn't bought Nix one of these in a couple of years, so he has no idea which one to get. He searches the plushes for one that is “sorry I didn't notice you almost die” worthy. Finally, he spots one of that stupid monster from the game Nix likes about the aftermath of nuclear fallout. It sounds cooler than it is, but it's barely even a fighting game. It's about rebuilding society from the dregs of who survived, but you also fight off giant mutant house pets who were just sheltered enough not to die but unfortunately gained… some weird extra parts.

This one is the “boss” of the game, an octopus with the ability to breathe air and who grew wings and claws on its tentacles. The plush is very cute, which is incredibly misleading. That monster gave Mitch nightmares for at least three days. But he knows Nix will love it, the guy wouldn't shut up about wishing they'd make a plush of it for months. He quickly double checks online, the plush was just released two days ago, good. Oh, it's apparently to raise hype for a sequel game. Joy. He sighs, grabbing a “pick and choose” box to fill with button pins for Zahra. Miko’s advice is solid, and he knows he isn't going to get past her without an awkward conversation anyways, but this way he'll actually be able to see Nix. Some pride ones, some assorted videogame ones, and one that says “I may be support class… but I'll kick your ass” because he knows she'll at least laugh at it if she doesn't pin it onto her backpack.

“Been a while since I've seen you around here, Mitchy.”

He pales, spinning around to face the voice, “Ashleighn… it's… great to see you.” His voice betrays the hatred he tries to conceal. Pushing past her, he heads to the register.

“You can't push me just because you're gay!” She yells, alerting the only other person in the store, the owner, to them.

Said owner quickly comes over, stepping between them to defuse the argument as they see Mitch’s posture shift to a fighting stance. “Hey, no discrimination allowed in here. Did you not see the rainbow flag on the door?”

Ashleighn growls, crossing her arms. “He pushed me!”

“You blocked off my exit!” Mitch growls, clutching the objects in his hands closer to him. “Look, I don't want to make a big thing out of this, can I just pay and leave?"

“Of course.” The owner, Lorrie, leads him up to the counter. “It's nice to see you here again, Mitch. I was expecting Nix today to come get that plush for his collection.”

“He's… in the hospital.” Mitch sighs, putting his items on the counter. 

“Ah.” Lorrie frowns. “Is… is he okay?”

“I don't know.”

“Can… can I send a note with you?” They grab a pen and some paper from a sketchbook nearby, not waiting for an answer.

“Sure.” Mitch taps his card on the debit machine, tucking it back into his wallet. “I'll make sure he gets it.”

“Thanks, Mitch.” They smile sadly, “Do you want a gift box?”

“I already paid.”

“Free of charge. Nix is my friend too.”

“...Thank you.” Mitch accepts the box they're holding out, placing the plush into it and tying the lid shut. “Think you can distract Ashleighn long enough for me to get out of here?”

“I can try.” Lorrie laughs, shooing him gently. “Go on, you have important business.”

Mitch dashes out the door, not sure how much time he has before they run out of stalling tactics. Once he gets out of sight, he starts on his walk to HQ. Miko drives past, turns around, and pulls up to a stop in her van beside him. “Dude, you look so bored, I'll give you a ride wherever you need to go.”

“I'm fine, thanks.” Mitch glares at her.

“Mitch, get in. HQ is like a five days walk from here, I won't tell anyone or anything.”

He sighs, shrugging and resignedly getting into the truck.

“Oooooh, prezzies.” Miko pokes at the boxes on his lap. “Whatzit?”

“Miko, I'm not in a ‘chill’ mood.” Mitch pulls them slightly further back, “Don't push me right now.”

She blinks, shifting back upright. “Okay dude, geez.” The rest of the drive is in awkward silence.

Mitch jumps out as soon as Miko slows to a stop at Hinobi, running off towards the medical wing without saying anything. Miko sighs, going to upload her collected glitches. “He's such a dingleberry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I wrote more. I can't figure out what is bugging me about this, but I've rewritten this part like five times and quite honestly I can't look at it any more.
> 
> Also: ocs for Mitch's backstory? yea? nay? I feel like something had to happen to make Mitch feel the need to hide behind such a.... lovely personality. Like, we see him drop the act at least twice in canon, so...

**Author's Note:**

> this is rambly and short, but it's a part of the story I've had stuck in my head for a while.  
> the idea for Mitch being stuck at home was inspired by Rose-Tinted by StormySeaWitch (which is an amazing pseud, love it) and also a solid fic. Go read it.  
> Also I may change this to being a multi-chaptered work eventually but tbh I know my track record with those and it's full of unfinished stories and I don't want to do that to y'all.


End file.
